Benjamin F. Jonas

Benjamin Franklin Jonas (19 July 1834-21 December 1911) was the United States senator from Louisiana from 4 March 1879 to 4 March 1885, succeeding and preceding James B. Eustis. He was the third Jewish American to serve in the US Senate.

Biography
Benjamin Franklin Jonas was born on 19 July 1834 in Williamsport, Kentucky to a family of English Jews that came to the United States. He attended public schools in Quincy, Illinois after moving there at a young age, and in 1853 he moved again to New Orleans. In 1855, Jonas graduated from the University of Louisiana and was admitted to the bar as a lawyer. Despite his family's loyalty to the South, he decided to side with the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War and joined the Confederate States Army in 1862, rising to the rank of Major. From 1865 to 1868 he was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, was elected to the state senate in 1872, and in 1879 he became the state's senator. He was the third Jewish member of the US Senate, and the second Jewish senator from Louisiana after Judah P. Benjamin. Jonas left office in 1885, and he died in 1911 at the age of 77 in New Orleans.